A tenacious retired detective and advances in picture recognition know-how helped Suffolk County cops make an arrest within the brutal chilly case killing of a beloved 88-year-old widow 21 years in the past, prosecutors introduced Friday.
Raul Ayala, 51, was indicted for the homicide of his then-neighbor Edna Shubert, whose physique was found brutally crushed to demise in her bed room on Dec. 12, 2003, in line with Suffolk County District Legal professional Ray Tierney.
“A shoe print impression was neatly seen on Ms. Schubert’s neck, face in a herringbone sample,” mentioned Suffolk County Assistant District Legal professional Eric Abouladfia, including the 93 pound lady’s reason behind demise was “blunt pressure trauma.”
“An post-mortem later revealed that Ms. Schubert sustained in depth facial fractures, as properly fractures to her sternum, ribs, thyroid bone, and thyroid cartilage. She additionally sustained a laceration to [her] collateral artery.”
Ayala was arrested in Talmo, Georgia, the place he had been dwelling, on January 16.
Throughout a packed arraignment Friday afternoon the place the suspect was remanded into custody, the now deaf defendant wanted an indication language interpreter, in line with lawyer Christopher Gioe.
As a 29-year-old, Ayala lived merely 200 yards away from Schubert, across the nook from her dwelling, and was believed to be unemployed then.
Tierney offered images of Schubert’s home being damaged into via a window and her entrance door left broad open all these years in the past.
The DA, who posted on X that that is “certainly one of Suffolk County’s most brutal chilly circumstances,” mentioned there is no such thing as a proof of a relationship between the 2.
Abouladfia mentioned that the case had a “breakthrough” in 2023 by the hands of Pasquale Albergo, a former Suffolk murder detective “who by no means stopped excited about this case … with the hopes that advances in know-how would clear up the homicide that he by no means forgot.”
In the end, detectives positioned Ayala’s fingerprints on the dwelling by taking a brand new image of a dated crime scene picture.
The brand new picture, which was analyzed utilizing trendy know-how, confirmed that Alaya’s left thumbprint was on the blinds of the damaged window, prosecutors mentioned.
As soon as enter right into a database, the suspect appeared to have had a DUI in Nassau County in 1995, and the brand new proof led to blood testing on pantyhose and a white shirt left on the dwelling.
It contained Schubert’s DNA and that of a then-unknown assailant, in line with the DA’s workplace.
Suffolk County investigators retrieved DNA from Ayala to check it in opposition to the blood discovered on Shubert’s clothes after touring all the way down to Georgia.
“After surveilling this defendant for a while in Georgia, this defendant discarded a number of lottery scratch-off tickets and left bottles, together with one Gatorade bottle,” Abouladfia mentioned.
“DNA from contained in the cap of that Gatorade bottle verify that this defendant was the supply of that unknown DNA profile.”
Gioe, nevertheless, maintains his shopper’s innocence.
“I perceive the prosecution has a place with respect to how sturdy their circumstances is, however the one factor I’ve heard about is the fingerprint and a chunk of DNA,” he mentioned.
In Riverhead court docket, Schubert’s nephew mentioned all the state of affairs was “surreal,” and her niece added, “We’re simply glad that they discovered him.”
Tierney additionally praised the sufferer, calling her “the grandma of the neighborhood.”
“She was retired from the Division of Motor Automobiles, and though she was a widow and had no youngsters of her personal, all of these youngsters who have been lucky sufficient to stay in that neighborhood — they thought-about them to be her youngsters. And he or she sorted these youngsters.”
The investigation was dealt with by Suffolk’s newly fashioned chilly case squad, which was liable for the apprehension of Gilgo Seaside killer suspect Rex Huermann of Massapequa Park.
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